Business Standard: New Delhi: Friday,
July 01, 2016.
Seeking to
reduce Right to Information applications, all central government departments
have been asked to put in public domain information that is frequently sought
by citizens under the RTI Act.
They have
also been asked to set up 'Information and Facilitation Centres' (IFCs) to
provide printed publications to citizens mentioning the categories of
information that are frequently being sought under the RTI.
The latest
directive is based on the recommendations of a committee formed by the
government to look into the scope of suo motu disclosure of governance-related
information by the central government departments.
The
Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has asked each public authority to
set up a committee comprising officials with rich experience of dealing with
RTI applications and appeals to identify the categories of such information.
"Such
information must be disclosed in the public domain to make it more
user-friendly and should also be reviewed at regular intervals," it said
in an order to all ministries.
The DoPT has
said the task of undertaking transparency audits may be given to the respective
training institutes under each ministry or department and across the states and
union territories.
The public
authorities shall constitute consultative committees consisting of
office-bearers of key stakeholder, association on rotational basis to have a
systematic and regular interaction between the officials of the public authorities
to advice what information to be uploaded as suo motu, it said.
The IFCs may
be set up in each public authority, where public dealing is involved to educate
the citizens about the information or documents available on the website of the
department concerned and to provide printed publications to them the categories
of information that are frequently being sought under the RTI Act and provide
copies of information as per RTI rules, the order said.
Information
on the website must be organised in form of searchable and retrievable database
to enable people to access the records. The nodal officer of each public
authority should be made responsible for this, the DoPT said.
It said that
website and other medium and publication of each public authority, relating to
Section 4 (which deals in voluntary disclosure of governance-linked
information) compliance must carry the date (where appropriate for each bit of
information) on which the information was uploaded or printed.
A committee
of experts consisting of A N Tiwari, former Chief Information Commissioner and
M M Ansari, Information Commissioner of Central Information Commission was
constituted to recommend, inter alia, measures to further strengthen
implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005.
The committee
had submitted its report which was accepted by the government and an order was
issued in June last year to all public authorities to follow its
recommendations.
Thereafter,
DoPT has issued instructions to all public authorities in that they must make
an analysis of information which is sought most often from applicants and
provide it on their website as suo motu disclosure.
The RTI Act
empowers a citizen to seek time-bound reply to their query on
governance-related matters.
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